On Saturday I received my first batch of custom letterpress business cards. In line with the entirety of my brand, the design is quite simple with only the brand logo on the front and “Wayne Toshikazu Photographers” on the back along with some basic contact info (website, phone) as seen below. The paper is 100% cotton, duplex (220 lb.) fluorescent white Crane Lettra. To make better sense of the duplex weight, I’ll just say that these cards are THICK.

Thanks to Lynn Russell at Satsuma Press in Covallis, OR, for doing a great job printing the cards and working with me to get them out in a very quick two weeks. She would love to hear from you if you are looking for a designer and printer for your letterpress projects. :)

Showing off his new sweater, looking as handsome as ever…

Moving away from the place where you’ve spent virtually your entire life is never easy, especially when it’s 1,000 miles away and you hardly know anyone in the place you’re moving to. For us though, we’ve been very fortunate as we’ve had the opportunity to meet some really great people who’ve made our transition here much easier than it could have been. I know that it’s not just us when we say that people in Portland tend to be very nice.

One of those people is Brandon Perron.

Brandon’s a talented photographer in the Portland area whom I met through the [b] school, the online social networking community for photographers. He’s been a great resource in getting a feel for the industry landscape here and has been a great friend so far to someone who literally knew no one when he got here just over a month ago.

Many thanks to Brandon for inviting me to assist him on a recent fashion shoot at the Hotel Deluxe in downtown Portland (well, I guess I actually invited myself – haha). In between assisting with lighting I was able to take some photos of my own, a few of which are posted here. You can view some of Brandon’s images here.

Please enjoy. :)

Here’s to starting the next leg of our journey together…

(Downtown Portland from the west hills.
Image taken with my iPhone via Chase Jarvis‘ Best Camera app)

Yes, yes, it’s true: I’m back! :)

The last time I posted to this blog was almost exactly three months ago (two days shy, to be exact). Unbelievable. Those three months have been characterized by no less than one of the busiest, most stressful times that my family has gone through, and I’m glad to say that we’ve made it through to the other side, with only minimal scarring and oodles and oodles of hope for the future. A lot has happened in that very short, very dense period of time to say the least.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s been going on….

Relocation to the Pacific Northwest

To make the BIG announcement, I have relocated my business almost exactly 1,000 miles away from our home in southern California to the pacific northwest, to the beautiful city of Portland, OR. My wife is a pediatrician, who just finished her residency this past summer, and unfortunately California jobs were just few and far between; and the ones that were available were, to be perfectly honest, characterized by fairly poor compensation and scheduling packages or were in less than ideal locations (i.e., not great for relocating my business). And because of that, we decided to cast our net a bit wider and started to look outside of California. And here we are!

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that we actually almost ended up about an hour north of Seattle, on a little island called Camano in the northern end of Puget Sound. If you’ve never been to northwestern Washington, or even Seattle, you’ve missed out on one of the most beautiful places ever. Seriously! I can’t think of any other way to describe it than to say that it’s simply magical. But at the last minute my wife happened upon a Portland job listing and as a matter of due diligence applied, got an immediate interview, and went up for a weekend (with husband in tow, of course) to see the city. In the end my wife felt that the Portland job, as well as the location, was a better fit for us, and it turns out she was right. We love it here! We found a cute little house to rent in southwest Portland, just a couple blocks from Multnomah Village, and just about no more than 10 minutes from everything else: downtown, NW 23rd, the Pearl District, parks, the zoo, museums, etc. Oh, and the largest independent bookstore in the world, Powell’s City of Books (drool)! And everyone is so nice here, we almost can’t believe it (sad, I know).

On the business end I’m still taking clients for weddings located in California, though on a very limited basis, and I’m already scheduled to fly back throughout the year for weddings of existing clients. For now though, my primary focus is on clients located in the pacific northwest and, as to be expected, in particular the Portland metro area. As much as I love to travel, especially back home to California, taking a single wedding abroad requires me to be away from home for at least an entire weekend, as opposed to one day, and being away for entire weekends too often is just too big a burden on my family right now. So if you’d like to retain me to photograph your California wedding, please contact me soon as I am only taking another 2 or 3 California weddings this year. :)

New Look

You’ve likely already noticed that I’ve changed the look of my logo a bit: a little bit cleaner, a little bit classier, and just overall a bit better looking. I’ve gone through a few changes in the last couple years as I’ve started my business and have tried to solidify my brand identity (which is not an easy process, as any entrepreneur will tell you), but this one is here to stay for a while. And in case you don’t believe me, I’m committing the new look to some not inexpensive custom stationary. :)

Which of course brings me to this: custom letterpress business cards! They won’t be ready for another week or so, so I can’t show any pictures just yet, but I’ve contracted with Satsuma Press, a local design and letterpress studio to produce the cards for me. The cards will be 3″ x 1.5″ in size, printed on 100% cotton, 220 lb. (read: really thick for double-side printing) fluorescent white lettra paper. Lynn Russell of Satsuma does incredible work, so I know the cards will look amazing when they arrive. I’m so confident and impressed with her work, that I’ve already begun talking to her about printing some custom thank you cards for me as well.

New Website

And finally, with the new look comes a new website. In some ways it’s similar to what I’ve done in the past, but it’s a bit cleaner now with greater readability in mind. I’ve also added some wedding galleries that I’ve never blogged before (including one of a wedding in the Bahamas shot with my friend Dustin Francis). I may get around to blogging the previously “un-blogged” weddings, but for now you can enjoy the images I’ve included at the new website. :)

New Year

Though I’m a little late (considering that it’s already January 18th), here’s to wishing all of us an incredible year of joy and happiness, a year in which our goals and dreams get just a bit closer in reach, if not entirely within our grasp. I’m so thankful for this new beginning, in our wonderful new city, and look forward to meeting the amazing new clients that I’m sure to work with here, and am especially grateful for my existing clients who have exhibited so much patience with me as I’ve made this larger than life transition, so far away from home.

See you soon! :)

How gorgeous is that light?

I had a quick engagement session with my friend Blake the other day down in San Juan Capistrano. I’ve known Blake for – what – 12 years now, maybe? One of the great things about knowing someone for so long is that you get to see the various stages of life through which he travels – and I couldn’t be happier to see him end up here with his beautiful fiancée Chau.

The super talented (and film shooter!) Leah McCormick will be shooting their wedding in November. How sweet are those photos going to be??

I’ve been so busy lately and over the summer that I had completely neglected to keep the updates on our lil’ guy going.  So here it is.

Jonas is now 10 months old. He’s not quite walking on his own yet, though don’t let that lead you to believe that he isn’t everywhere yet. HE IS. Yup. Anywhere and everywhere: that’s where you’ll find Jonas these days. Not quite mobile, yet all the while completely and destructively mobile.

And he is sooooo smart, too. He picks up things quickly either through imitation or self-discovery. It’s really amazing to watch.

Now we’re starting to let him feed himself with a spoon. Well, he hasn’t quite gotten to the feeding himself part, as you can see in the above picture. But isn’t he cute all the same?

Oh, and did you notice those little white things sticking out of his mouth? TEETH!!

Stay tuned for some big announcements and updates!